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Republican state Rep. John V. Garza, who rates himself as Bexar County's most conservative lawmaker, is trying to keep the office he narrowly won in 2010 by clinging to his tea party-backed stances on state spending, taxation and other issues.

Garza said that in his first term, he backed laws to improve public schools, reform homeowner association rules and bolster volunteer fire departments. “I definitely wasn't furniture,” he said, using Capitol jargon for members who accomplish nothing.

But Philip Cortez assails Garza's freshman performance and hopes to recapture the southwestern Bexar County district for the Democrats by touting his tenure on the City Council. Cortez slams Garza's 2011 votes on school and health care funding, and he blasts Garza's attempts to preserve Bexar Metropolitan Water District before it was dissolved by ratepayers.

The BexarMet vote “was one of the few issues where the entire Bexar County delegation came together to say, ‘Let's let the people decide,' and John Garza was still saying ‘No, no, no,'” Cortez said.

Garza, 56, who sells homes and works for a title company, says he was defending BexarMet assets and ratepayers' rights, and he's eager to try again.

The candidates have participated in several community forums, with more to come, and clashed again Friday on “Texas Week with Rick Casey,” when Cortez criticized Garza for backing cuts to women's health care.

Garza captured the seat with 52 percent of the vote over David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, whose residency in the district was challenged. The close finish left Democrats determined to reclaim the district that was drawn to be evenly split between the major parties.

The contest is considered one of the most competitive Texas House races.

Cortez, 34, who served on City Council from 2007 to 2011, left it because of term limits. A captain in the Air Force Reserve, he teaches political science at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and does community relations work for the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center.

Representing the city's District 4, Cortez served as a key ally of Mayor Julián Castro and led efforts to rename Durango Boulevard for Cesar E. Chavez in 2011.

He weathered controversies, some before he took office.

According to 2007 news reports, Cortez was assailed for claiming a master's degree before he met requirements. The next year, according to an Express-News editorial, “Cortez led his unknowing colleagues to vote for a rezoning that violated a nonbinding agreement to avoid putting residential neighborhoods inside a 3-mile buffer zone surrounding Toyota.”

In 2010, Cortez was chastised for selecting Leticia Cantu, then his fiancée and now his wife, to fill in for him on the council while he was on military active duty.

And this year, Cortez survived a bruising primary race after hiring a private eye to show that his opponent, Tina Torres, lived outside the district.

Like Garza, Cortez takes pride in his Southwest Side roots and hopes to see more improvements there.

“We used to go to other parts of town to have a nice dinner. Not anymore,” Cortez told residents at a South San Community Center forum. “We still have a ways to go,” he said, in job creation, infrastructure and other needs.

Garza cites similar goals but offers vastly different approaches.

“My entire professional career has been working with families for affordable housing. I know the struggles that working families are going through right now, getting a mortgage and paying their bills,” he said.

Garza said his first goal is bringing more jobs and job training to the district, 45 percent of which is in San Antonio. He wants the district to benefit more from the nearby Eagle Ford Shale. Another top priority, he said, is education.

“That's why I voted to increase resources by over $130 million to education,” Garza said, citing the state's two-year school spending plan approved in 2011.

“I'm going to continue to introduce reforms that allow teachers to have more time in the classroom, that more of those dollars go directly to the classrooms and allow school districts to pay the best teachers more,” Garza said.

But Cortez chided Garza for citing the $130 million increase in total education spending, because Garza also backed $5.4 billion in state education cuts, comprising $4 billion to the basic funding formula and $1.4 billion to discretionary grants. As a result, districts did not get money to reckon with enrollment growth, Cortez said.

He said the budget resulted in District 117 school systems losing $114 million, but Garza countered that “those were not reductions. There were no automatic increases. ... No school teachers were laid off in any of the seven school districts that I represent.”

Garza said he'd advocate again for school choice, also known as vouchers, but hasn't embraced a specific plan.

“We've been throwing money at education every session, and we're not getting a higher quality,” Garza said.

Cortez, who opposes vouchers, said education funding is “an area where Mr. Garza and I completely disagree ... this last session was the worst Legislature they've seen toward education,” he said. As a result, Cortez argued, schools “haven't been able to hire, thus increasing classroom sizes. Buses need to be upgraded. They can't do that because of the cuts voted on by my opponent.”

Garza stands by his votes and his anti-tax reputation.

“I've been the most conservative member of the Legislature in Bexar County,” he said, adding, “I appreciate tea party support.”

However, he added, “I am not a tea party guy. I'm not far right, but I'm not a liberal either.”